Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings, like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. Isaiah 40:31

The First Day

Today is Wednesday and that is now the weigh-in day for our At-Work meetings with Weight Watchers. I chose today as my “new beginning” and requested a completely new weight record. I’ve been attending meetings since mid-November, but haven’t found the fortitude to stick with my plans until now. And since I am now re-committing and re-energized toward this goal, I wanted a completely fresh start.

I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t all that happy with my weight today. I didn’t expect to be, but I think somewhere in my heart of hearts, I truly hoped I was lighter than I feared. That was not the case. And, because I am committed to full disclosure and accountability here, I’m just going to take a deep breath and type my starting weight.

188.0

Ugh, it never gets any less painful to realize I let myself gain weight. Sigh.

I get the sentiment, but I don’t know if this will ever be true for me. I mean, I think I am always going to enjoy food that is probably not the healthiest for me. And, I think that on some level, I’m going to justify eating or overeating or whatever you want to call it, at various times in my life. What I think I need to get a handle on is exactly how to live my life in a healthy state without going whole-hog on the less healthy options. How to be satisfied with just a little bit.

When I was successful losing weight before, I followed Weight Watchers Points Plus program and now it’s Smart Points. The Smart Points takes into account the nutritional value of food in a much more common sense way. Protein is valued over sugar and carbs and fruits and vegetables and “real food” is much better than the processed stuff and that is reflected in the point values. What I think worked for me before and I expect to work for me this time is that I can mess around with the points values and decide what I want to eat and avoid feeling deprived.

In the year or two since I was at my goal, I have tried a couple of other programs to try and lose weight quickly and i would lose weight quickly — but I would cut something completely out of my diet. I tried a Whole 30, and I WAS feeling good and noticing the difference in my mid-section without any sugar or processed sugar or artificial sugar and only ingesting protein and vegetables. But I was hating life. I’m not kidding. Hating. Life. So I just said, “Eff it” and had myself a diet coke and a donut. And it probably would have been fine if it had just stopped there, but….it didn’t.

I wish I had a hundred dollars for every time I went through that cycle in my life…

During the meeting our leader asked us what was one small change we could make this week. Well, I had already made one change that I knew I would make when I decided to start blogging again. Besides the accountability with blogging that made me successful before, I had asked Craig to hide our bathroom scale and committed to only weighing at weekly meetings. So this morning, I sent Craig a message and asked him to hide the scale again. The only place I will step on the scale will be at meetings.

Avoiding the scale between meetings helps me make choices on their own merit. I had this habit of thinking, “Hmmm,, I’ve been good for a couple of days, I wonder what my weight is.” and getting on the scale. Whatever I saw seemed to impact my choices that day and the coming days. If it was down, I would think, “Oh! I’ve done well, I’ll have that third piece of pizza!” or if it was up, ,I would think, “Ugh, I was being good and I still don’t see the scale budge, I might as well eat a donut!” It was a HUGE positive thing not to have the scale in my bathroom my last time through weight loss. So, now I will no longer see a bathroom scale this time around either.

My other commitment is that I will track everything. Every. Thing. Tracking my food is my biggest key to success. I need to be accountable to myself, and remember that just because I didn’t track it doesn’t mean I didn’t eat it.This photo shows that of my 36 daily points, I used them all plus 1 of my weekly points. And, I am done for today. I came here to write and then I am watching movies with my kids. And I’ll shower and go to bed and it will all be ok.

I did get my workout in today. And I had the opportunity to work on pull-ups. Some of you may remember when I actually got pull-ups the first time. But of course, with my lapse in healthy choices, etc., I lost my ability. But I recently regained it and I am very excited about that. 🙂 I also got up to 135 pounds on our weightlifting complex today (Clean/Power Clean/Jerk).

I have begun (again). It’s just day one and I know I won’t be perfect every day. But I am at least committed to trying every day: tracking, making healthy, positive choices and owning up any time I fall short.

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1 thought on “The First Day”

It’s not easy to get back on the horse, and it’s even harder to be as open about it as you are here, but I thank you for doing it. I’ve been feeling very discouraged with my eating choices as well. My problem is more about my food intolerances. I do pretty well avoiding my big triggers, but the smaller ones that I’m okay if I eat a little… well, that “little” keeps adding up, and it does NOT help my overall well-being. Seeing your resolution helps me want to keep plugging away at addressing mine as well!